


In All Shades, I Know You

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: A lot of them are about Martin Blackwood, Banter, During Canon, Eventual Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Extensive hair dyeing sequence, Hair, Hair Dyeing, Jonathan Sims has too many thoughts, M/M, Neurodivergent Jonathan Sims, POV Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sappy Ending, Scottish Honeymoon, Slow Burn, The Magnus Archives Season 1, The Magnus Archives Season 2, The Magnus Archives Season 3, The Magnus Archives Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25738054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: Martin Blackwood dyes his hair. Jonathan Sims finds this, in turn, unprofessional, suspicious, unnerving, essential, and lovely.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 56
Kudos: 298





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [This post](https://bythewoodsitgrows.tumblr.com/post/612365788011249664/just-got-possessed-by-a-jonmartin-fic-idea-omg-so) has been sitting in my brain for four months, stewing away, to the point where it just became a matter of time before I wrote something to do with Martin Blackwood: Dyed Hair Edition. Also I dyed my own hair, which will be relevant in the second part, which is somehow the same length as this part despite only covering the Scottish Honeymoon. (Yes, part two is finished, I just need to edit it.) I have no idea how this fic ended up so long on such a weak premise as 'hair dye', but here we are.

Jon has never had much use for colour theory in his life. Several of the books his grandmother scooped up in her charity shop raids concerned colours – both asinine infantile definitions and rather more detailed nuance for artists with 50p to spare from their starving student lifestyles – but they’d never engaged him. Descriptions always seemed useful, until they seemingly inevitably devolved into poetry. Jon has never been able to stand poetry. 

Within the first few months of taking up the role of Head Archivist, Jon has been exposed to not only quantities of tea hitherto undreamed of, but also irritating incompetence, lurking poetry, and a deep dive into the myriad shades of pink which have no need to exist but apparently do. All of this is down to Martin Blackwood. It's hard to say precisely what Jon likes least between the staggering lack of understanding of correct research practices or the ‘helpful’ highlighted texts left in the kitchen, but he does know he doesn't care what colour Martin's hair is. Except for how he does, because Martin has already cycled through three dyes in as many months and they have decidedly not been the same colour. Also, there is no reason for any sort of professional to have pink hair. You would have thought that sort of thing would go without saying – unless Martin has been getting the wrong idea from Tim’s shirts.

"Very flamingo," Sasha comments on the latest change, and Jon grinds his teeth over the inanity of the statement and decidedly not the impulse to explain that Martin's hair is _fuchsia_. Moreover, he does not observe to the two of them that in order to acquire that colour through what is clearly not a professional dye job – it fades towards the back where he hasn't worked it in enough, as it always does – Martin must be investing most of a packet (tub? bottle?) per session. On hair colour. Perhaps it leaks into the brain.

If it does affect intelligence, though, the same can't be said of Sasha, with her crimson tips. Another reason to object to Martin's hair: pink and red clash horrifically. At least Sasha’s exists in nature, and she's already spoken of her willingness to simply snip the ends off should it be deemed necessary. (She offered this with a steely tint to her eyes, and Jon had shifted in his Head Archivist's chair and agreed it was not, in fact, necessary.)

\---

"Go on then," Tim says once, eyes glinting in a manner which bodes nothing but ill. Much like Jon agreeing to drinks, again because disagreeing with Sasha has a tendency to come with Consequences. "Say something nice about Martin's hair."

"I did specify "truth", Tim," Jon says wearily. Bad enough that Tim clearly thinks they're all at the same mental age as him; the least he could do is follow his own rules.

“Fucking ouch,” Tim says with a whistle, and it’s only then that Jon realises that possibly that might sound offensive in a far more personal and direct way. Still, when he glances over, Martin appears more interested in finishing his cider.

Because apologies are unspeakably pointless if the receiver isn’t offended, Jon instead says, “If you went a shade darker, you’d match your drink.”

Martin chokes and then pats at his own face as Tim howls with laughter. When Jon attempts to find sanity in Sasha, he finds that she’s already occupied with checking Martin isn’t actually choking. From there, it’s only a matter of time before Jon makes an escape, and he’s never missed drinking alcohol more. At least then you understand why nothing makes sense.

\---

Jon only actually discovers Martin's real hair colour once the man in question has been forced to shelter in the archives from an actual worm woman. Truth be told, while it would presumably always be mildly disconcerting to have one of your assistants burst dramatically into your office bearing a jar of worms, a lot of Jon's alarm owed itself more to the sight of that faded straw-tinged bleached hair.

"I suppose it has some advantages," he jokes, poorly, because even without looking he doubted this scenario was covered in any sort of traditional management manual. Of course, he hasn't asked Elias, who would presumably know whether or not such a tome existed. It certainly seems like the sort of thing Elias _would_ know, and precisely something where revealing ignorance would only garner Jon a particularly withering smile.

"What?" Martin straightens up from where he's been, for want of a better word, plumping the pillow on the cot. Jon can’t really blame him. That pillow takes some wrangling to get right. "What – There are _advantages_ to this?"

"No," Jon says, "I guess not." Stupid thing to joke about, really.

Martin tugs out the corner of the pillow – his pillow now, Jon supposes – and Jon's gaze lingers again on the sheer oddness of that vague dead blondness. Having (reluctantly) grown used to virulent pinks, this should have softened Martin’s appearance – something far less actively offensive – but instead it makes him look like a ghost. Faded. Combined with the weight loss and the general echoes of terror on his face, it makes it hard to see him as Martin at all.

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?" When Jon doesn’t reply, Martin's puzzled frown rises into rather more familiar panic. "I mean – Not that you're not allowed to look, if you want to, not that I'm asking, it's just that you're staring, only of course you're not staring, you're just – you're just looking at me, because I'm in the room and so are you, and I, er..." He trails off, his skin offering a welcome splash of colour. "You know, you could say something now. Anything."

"I'm not quite sure when I had the chance." Martin's mouth flattens out. Jon should really steer clear of jokes. He isn’t even sure why he’s trying: it’s hardly professional behaviour, and hasn’t Georgie told him often enough how normal it is for people to not 'get' his sense of humour? Something about personas and expectations. It had been facile and tedious and therefore an accurate assessment of normal people.

Jon clears his throat, tugging the front of his shirt into place before he realises he’s doing it. Sooner or later, they'll all realise what a tell that is. He's certainly seen Elias' eyes lock onto the motion enough times, leaving him only more aware of the habit's inevitability. "It's just...unusual. Your hair. Seeing it like that."

Martin's hand knots in his hair, and for some reason he blushes again. "Oh, that's – " He breathes a laugh, even though his fingers are tense. "I wrapped up the showerhead in towels and filled up the plughole – you know. Because worms. Besides," he laughs again, even weaker, "can't really take time out in the middle of fearing for your life to colour your hair, right?"

"I suppose not." Jon can barely fathom taking the time to do it at all. It leaves him with very little to comment on, which pushes him towards small talk, which never ends well for him. "We do have a shower here. If you wanted to...do that."

"Oh!" Martin blinks at him, and his fingers are still tangled in his hair. Jon can't imagine it feels nice. Bleaching is hardly the best treatment. "That's, er, kind? Of you?" He swallows. "I mean – I thought you didn't...like it."

Jon starts to reply, several times. He's caught between lying and the way the truth of his annoyance sits strangely on his tongue. This is precisely why social interactions are best avoided: there's no way of telling what the right answer is (if one even exists). Besides, for all they work together, Martin is a stranger. A highly vexing, incompetent, poetry-obsessed stranger. "It just looks different. And I can't imagine that shade of yellow is what you intended." He frowns. "Even if I have no idea why you'd intend the pink either."

To his surprise, Martin does not swallow or stutter or blush the way he usually does when Jon criticises him. (He should feel guilty about that, but then again, how else is Martin supposed to know when he's done something wrong?) "Yeah, I get it, really. My, er – My mum isn't a fan."

Jon knows absolutely nothing about Martin's mother, but apparently the two of them have one thing in common. "She...tolerates it, though?"

Now Martin's face shuts down. Jon can't say what exactly changes, only that suddenly he can't read anything into it – not because he’s hardly ‘face literate’, as Georgie puts it, but because there's nothing to read. 

"I'm sorry."

"No, it's..." Martin is pulling at the pillow again. "Anyway. I used up the last of my dyes. Last time I mixed all the leftovers together, and I buy them in bulk and I didn't get a chance to do a shop before – before Prentiss happened. So I guess you're stuck with this, for now."

Jon allows himself to hunch his shoulders, just a little. It's not as if Martin is watching. "You could always grow it out again? Give your hair a break." As if Martin's hair is some sort of overstressed businesswoman.

"I hate my hair," Martin says shortly, and that's the end of that.

\---

They're all strongly encouraged to take time away, after Prentiss is allegedly dead and Gertrude Robinson has been confirmed as such. Jon is encouraged much more strongly than the others, and at length. If it were possible for Elias to mesmerise him into going home, or some such nonsense, he's certain he would have discovered that by now.

Martin's hair isn't pink when they all reconvene, but neither is it flaxen or the light shade of brown which had begun to reveal itself at the crown. (Jon had looked at that ring of pale chestnut as they waited to die and wondered how anyone could hate the colour so much.)

"Good Lord," Jon says, the first time.

Martin's hand instantly flies up, face already darkening. "Oh God, it's shit, isn't it?" Then he blinks, staring at Jon with renewed terror. "I mean – I guess it doesn't look good? I just, I needed to pick something, and I know I should have gone for something more professional, it's just..." And, despite that promise of further explanations, he trails off there.

There are probably worse colours to choose. It's just that, well, blue is such an ambiguous choice, in terms of symbolism. It can represent the sky, intellect, deities or deity-adjacent individuals in any number of religions. It's a colder colour by far than pink, logically rather than emotionally-attuned. The darker shade might suggest the depths of the ocean perhaps, although that particular navy reminds Jon uncannily of the hoodies at university and thus a complicated relationship he does not enjoy having revived.

"Jon?"

Jon makes a sound which is not intended as a grunt, although no doubt Martin will interpret it as such. "It's different. For you."

"Er. Good different?"

Martin's trying to change his appearance. Was he hiding before, with the pink? Why is he so uncomfortable with his own hair? What does this choice signify? 

"Different," Jon tells him, and heads to his office, fingers whitening around the bag with his spare recorder.

\---

The navy only lasts nine days. The dye job, that is – the actual colour fades alarmingly fast, into a sort of washed-out sea green which turns Jon's stomach a little. It's the sort of colour he fancies he might see shimmering on the walls of the tunnels, were he to acquire better lighting than a standard torch. It seems like it would belong there.

It's easier to admit he's suspicious of Martin's amateur hairdressing activities than of his potential capacity for murder.

"I know what you mean." Sasha sighs. "I hate that stuff. I don't know why anybody would do that to themselves."

Jon can only agree.

The shades vary again – far more so, even. Darker blues are harder to find and closer to black, which Jon assumes isn't the point. He also seems far less satisfied with the results: Denim, Ocean Blue, Electric, Royal, Lagoon. One or two are bulk orders online, as he'd said; others, remainders from acquaintances at the poetry slams he chooses to submit himself to, or the result of constant eBay hunts. Jon follows it all and spends even longer thinking about what it means.

Why the change? Why the dissatisfaction?

What's it hiding?

\---

"They never come out right."

"And the pinks did?" Jon asks without pausing. He probably should have, judging by the hints of a pout around the edges of Martin's mouth. It's the day after the latest attempt, Martin sporting a surprising shade of aquamarine which clashes subtly with his maroon jumper.

"Alright, I know you didn't like them, there's no reason to rub it in."

"I never said that."

Impressively, Martin almost scowls. Perhaps that's the effect of having your greatest secret exposed as a defence against a murder accusation. Jon wouldn't know: he's never been accused of murder by a work colleague. Then again, he never quite got that far with Martin, either. "You did."

"No, that would be unprofessional."

Martin chokes a little. "More unprofessional than – than _stalking_ us?"

Jon does not have the ability to vanish into his mug, more's the pity. "I certainly don't remember using that exact phrase."

Martin visibly bites something back, which makes Jon curious as to what precisely he was going to say. "Okay," Martin says, which simply eliminates that from the possible options. "That's – Okay."

Jon shifts a little in his seat. Somewhere outside, he knows Tim and Sasha are talking, because he can hear Tim's voice tightening as she no doubt cancels on him again. "You didn't answer my question."

"About...?" Martin waggles his fingers near his head, somehow almost causing himself to spill the tea he's holding in his other hand. "Blue's...unpredictable, I guess. Either it doesn't work, or it does and then it goes all green."

"Then why bother?"

"Because I – " Martin swallows; lowers his voice. "I thought I needed something different. Something...less silly."

Jon is not gifted when it comes to nuance. Funny, he can pick apart the flaws in a statement perfectly easily, even now that he knows the likelihood of something being truly amiss. Talking directly, however, leaves him with a time limit, and it's not as if Martin hides it when the silences stretch out too long.

The problem is that Jon _does_ think pink is a ridiculous colour, even more so to make such a seemingly permanent part of your person. However, blue is hardly a sensible or natural colour either, and it does far less for Martin's appearance. A few of the shades should led him a slightly more sombre air, with at least, and instead all of them sit so awkwardly. An off-note, if he allows himself to mix his aesthetic media.

Somehow he doubts Martin ever wants to hear a comment regarding his appearance that involves the phrase 'aesthetic media'. Of course, Martin clearly never wishes to receive any observations ever from Jon, not even useful ones.

"Is this one of those times that I should just go?"

Jon clears his throat for no reason, and shuffles the pages of this week's statement with a similar lack of explanation or necessity. He can almost hear the echo of his grandmother down the corridor, telling him to stop fidgeting. "Thank you for the tea, Martin."

\---

Jon has never much considered life on the lam, at least regarding himself. Obviously crime exists in the UK, in staggering quantities and varieties, but getting framed for murder always seemed such a distant American cliché. Of course, the same could be said for...well, much of the events of the last few weeks. Perhaps not Sasha's replacement, but the less said about that, the better.

The point is that he is singularly unsuited to the scenario, a fact of which Georgie has reminded him at least once a day since his arrival on her doorstep with a scrambled story and apparently the sort of expression that makes perfectly nice girls take in crazed ex-boyfriends blathering about their place of employment. If he's being frank with himself, all he actually wants to do is settle down and think about everything Jurgen Leitner has revealed to him – this new world that has been unveiled. Even sitting in Georgie's flat with only the Admiral to discuss such questions with, the curiosity itches at him, the questions he should have asked piling higher and higher. That and the need to _move_ , which might be the curiosity or might be the boredom.

He should be relieved to be back at the Institute, however briefly. He should want to compare notes or reassure himself that at least one person present doesn't want to kill him (although last time he did that he vanished down an only partially-justified pit of paranoia).

" _Green_."

This is not what he should be focusing on.

"God, don't you start."

It's... 

Well, it's really quite virulent. If it's like the blue, such a brightness won't last, but then Jon has been gone a while. Perhaps Martin is getting the hang of this. Or he's getting a professional to – no, he's not. It's still him doing it.

"I'm not starting anything."

"You haven't been here; I'm sorry you missed the gossip." It's surprisingly sharp for Martin – which is to say that from anyone else employed here at any point it would seem dreadfully soothing – and Jon finds himself both disconcerted and impressed. Also, really rather relieved to hear someone talking to him normally. A little. "Yes, my hair is green, okay? It kept fading to green so I figured, why not? It's not like the blue was working for me. Not like it does for Melanie."

It's extremely defensive and Martin won't look at him and this is far too freeing a conversation. Talking to Georgie is easy, right up until it isn’t; since starting on this investigation of his, Jon hasn't experienced that again until now. He doesn't know when it got so easy to listen to Martin. He really does have a remarkable ability to fill silences with something other than portentous hints or violent accusations.

"Christ, does it look that bad?"

"As bad as what?"

"You're laughing at me."

"I'm really not." And he really isn't. Jon's not sure the last time he laughed out loud – not out of genuine humour, anyway. Bitter cynicism isn't quite the same thing.

Martin scowls, just a flash that draws his eyebrows down and up in a way that would be comical if Jon was allowed to laugh. "Don't smile that way then. That's your laughing smile."

"I wasn't even aware I had one of those," Jon says, truthfully.

\---

Jon catches a flash of green out of the corner of his eye, when he's freshly back from the States and surprisingly desperate for an over-sweetened cup of tea, and flinches so hard he thinks he pulls something.

Martin used to change shades, constantly. The likelihood of Jon returning from whatever pilgrimage-cum-murder-tour he'd found himself on and Martin's hair staying the exact same emerald green? Near infinitesimal. Certainly in the singular percentage points, unless decimals are involved. Would pi qualify? Jon suspects he might be able to recite pi even further now than he could with all his nine-year-old determination and boredom.

Either Jon's thoughts are growing more asinine or he's having more of them. It's hard to say which. Especially when trying to stay focused has a nasty way of bringing up memories of seared flesh or the delayed sting of a knife.

He sags a little against the wall of the office, tea held but not drunk, realising that once again he's staring at the back of Martin's head. It's a habit he picked up...somewhere. Melanie's forbidden him from it and Basira seemingly only tolerates so that occasionally she can spin her head around to pin him in place with a look and make Jon jump so hard that physics takes his tea. 

With Tim, it's rare to get to such a point of mildly glazing over without a fight breaking out. It's unfortunate, to say the least. The two of them have never precisely resembled a calm sea of mutual amicability, but now Tim would kill him if given half the chance and a suitably painful way of doing it. Time was, that would have had Jon jumping at shadows; now he takes a sip of his tea and only winces a little at the tepidness of it.

There's something so familiar about that green, is the thing. Something where staring at it makes the rest of world take on a tinge, as Jon sinks into it. Not literally, of course, it's bad enough he's just staring at his assistant's hair like this. Must be the jet lag, he thinks, while knowing perfectly well that that passed last week and any lingering sleep issues are the standard burden.

Where's he seen it before? How does Martin know it?

The questions tingle on his lips and he takes another sip of tea, instead focusing on the blend and composition of sugar to milk to dried-out leaves. For a moment there's a flicker in his mind, like a sense memory of coins from petty cash rubbed together as eyes move guiltily along from the cheaper own-brand teabags. Something's happening inside Jon's head and outside in Jon's world. Elias is helpful in the most unhelpful manner possible; positively breathtaking in what he'll do to give Jon vague portents and brush aside the slightest of his worries.

Martin's roots are starting to show again. Better to focus on that than the green.

Sometimes Jon closes his eyes and he sees that green (or reflected in his desk, in puddles on the street) and he wishes it were something as simple as a lack of professionalism. 

Coincidences have gone very poorly for him lately.

\---

They're leaving for Great Yarmouth tomorrow. It's not Bournemouth, but it is the seaside, and while they're not aiming for a day out Jon is still not relishing the prospect of going anywhere near a British beach.

"So what'll you do when it's over, then?"

Jon blinks slowly, feeling the weight of his own eyelids. "That seems rather optimistic of you."

Martin shifts, smile flickering like a sputtering bulb. "Yeah, just – I don't know. Seemed like the sort of thing to talk about?"

"It feels like tempting fate. Making plans. Imagining it'll all turn out _well_." As if there is such a thing.

Martin reaches out, like he's going to attempt some awful manly punch to Jon's arm, and Jon feels a finger prod very lightly at his jacket. "Thought you didn't believe in fate."

"I believe in what I can see, which unfortunately is getting to be something of a problem these days. Because of the Stranger," he adds belatedly, as if Martin cares about lying. "I suppose you'll have a session at your personal salon." He bites off the question mark at the end just in time. Hard to say how the truth would go poorly; it still doesn’t seem worth the risk.

"My what?"

Jon gestures very vaguely, before sighing and drawing that finger down the parting in his own hair, down to where Martin’s bleached hair starts. "That's an awful lot of brown. If you're not careful, someone might mistake you for an employee."

Martin's laugh is a bit too hard, more like a bullet firing – a sound Jon recognises, now. It sounds surprised. "You don't know. I think I could pull off the badger look."

"Is that what they're calling it?" Jon misses the question this time but there's no buzz on his lips, so that's alright. "Nothing more...flattering?"

"Hey, I like badgers!"

"Of course you do," Jon sighs. He does not comment on any resemblances between Martin and a supposedly soft-hearted creature capable of striking real fear into any actual small furry animal's heart. He doesn't even think it.

With no idea as to why, he still notices Martin deflating from his mock-outrage, his eyebrows drawing together in a way that threatens concern. Martin never bothers dying his eyebrows. It's one of those details which would probably bother Jon either way. Especially when he knows some sort of sentiment is coming and he simply cannot deal with it.

"Jon, I – "

"What made you pick that green?"

"It just looked familiar," Martin tells him. "Every time I mean to pick something else, it doesn't look right. And it reminds me of you." Then he blinks. "Um."

So much for being careful. "Shit," Jon says, with all the intelligence and incisive inquiry you'd expect from a head of a department and an Oxford graduate combined. "Martin, I'm sorry."

Martin is touching his lips, which is...oddly distracting, despite the flare of panic sending chemical shadows up the sides of Jon's brain. "That's... It's really weird. I didn't – "

"No," Jon says, "I didn't either." He scoops up his bag from where he'd let it slide to the floor; he can't manage so much as a hint of surprise at the muffled sound of running tape coming from inside. "I'm sorry, and..." He sighs, fingers tightening around the strap over his shoulder. Looking at Martin seems a terrible idea, but, well, he'll probably be dead soon. "Good luck."

Martin says something similar. Somehow, it sounds like more.

\---

It isn't a jump forwards, the six months. It isn't like he closed his eyes on an explosion and woke up to hospital bedsheets and a calendar with the wrong date. That would be far too kind, for the world in which Jon finds himself now. Too kind for any world, he supposes.

He Knows it was six months, and that is the only thing keeping him here. He dreamt and he dreamt and time meant nothing, round and round in loops. Who's to say how Oliver's voice reached him? Death can be funny like that.

"Look on the bright side," Georgie says, as he signs his name to free himself from the place Elias saw fit to place him, "this is the coolest you've looked in years."

His name doesn't look like his name. It's only muscle memory that moves his hand, and he has to stop himself carrying on after the lower-case s. Slowly he puts the pen down. "Pardon?"

"Christ, actual manners," she mutters to herself. "I mean this," and she jabs towards his head, outstretched finger just shy of touching him. After that first hug, she hasn't touched him again. Every time she's about to, it's like something distracts her – like something catches her attention and she can't follow through. "I was going to say you look like you're in a band, but really it's just the hot professor thing. I always said you could pull that off."

For want of anything else to do besides look at her, he blinks. It feels more conscious than it should. "Georgie, I have no idea what you're talking about." Then something itches, a scratching that makes him frown, and he finds his own fingers running along his hair – his hair, he now realises, which he used to keep very carefully shorn before this all started and which has now run riot down to his shoulders. When he looks at the strands he has pinched together, he can see black and white in more or less equal measures, and the first think he can think to say is "Badger."

The word hangs there. Judging them. The only positive is discovering something which can leave Georgie Barker at a loss for words.

"The fuck?" she asks eventually, at the end hitting a note he's never heard from her before.

Explaining that will somehow take even longer than explaining how he's awake – how he's alive. Besides, with it comes a flash of Martin smiling, even in the dark of the tunnels, and there's another itch which forces Jon to say anything to avoid it. "I don't know if there's enough on my Oyster. To get to my flat," he goes on. "If I...have that?"

It's nothing new, for Georgie to look at him as if he's insane. Looking at him as if he's a stranger is something else entirely, and yet it's probably more accurate. As much as he now finds himself longing for the former.

Eventually, Georgie says, "We can check at the station. I assume your flat is wherever you left it. If you know where that is."

"I can probably take a stab at it," Jon says drily. Georgie relaxes and he doesn't think she should.

\---

Home is where the heart is, so it's exceedingly apparent that the Archives are not home. That’s the conclusion based on his reception, at any rate. Who knew not dying could receive this sort of criticism?

Regardless, Jon feels much more settled in the Archives, and he hates it. Hates that it was already the case before the coma, and hates that now it isn't just comfortable, it takes a weight off of his chest and sends him soaring. Every time he leaves, he fancies he can feel a tether tight around him, something akin to a spacewalk only it's the fear holding onto him. 

Untangling his metaphors takes more trouble than it's worth.

He never thought much about it before, how he recognises people. It had always been in a very human way, he supposes – the way he assumes everything used to be. Certain features or a distinctive laugh; a familiar greeting with an awkward wave. Something of a mystery to him, even before. If he had to say how he's previously known Martin is there, in the same space with him, he'd probably mention Martin's hair somewhere early on. Presumably with something witheringly insulting attached, because Jon might be able to delude himself about many things, but his own failings are not one of them.

In the corridor, he Knows the instant Martin is there too. He Knows when Martin is a floor above, as well; when he's just left the room; when he should still be there. It means that when he finally sees Martin with the two eyes set into his skull, he's already reacting, turning and opening his mouth and feeling his heart speed up, before he realises everything wrong with the way Martin looks. Heavy inside him rests the weight of the knowledge that without the Eye, Jon would have walked right past him. That's how little he would have noticed.

Everything is wrong, in that the Jon of the past would have practically cried Hallelujah at seeing so much finally right. (He doesn't know what a god of fear requests as a declaration of praise.) The buttoned-down shirt; a tie with an actual tie-pin; shoes which must have cost more than a tenner. A straightened spine which reminds Jon of when he cared about superfluous performances of professionalism. Blacks and blues, not like a bruise but like an abandoned photo of the sea.

And brown. It's the brown where Jon's eyes lock.

"I thought you hated it," he blurts out, Martin somehow restoring his humanity just enough for him to trip over himself. "That's what you told me."

Martin sighs, brow wrinkling ever so slightly. He doesn't so much as brush at his hair the way he always has done before, whenever Jon's mentioned it, although Jon fancies he sees Martin's hands tighten around the folder he's holding to his chest. "It's just my hair, Jon. It's not like it matters."

"It matters to you."

"And I got over it," Martin says, and it doesn't quite have the acidic aftertaste of a lie. "I thought you'd _approve_ of that," and now Jon is flinching too hard, too much human static in his head, to know whether it's true from either of them, "me acting like an adult."

Not even a touch of bleach at the ends, lost to the short back and sides. It makes Jon aware all over again of the extra weight pulling at his head – the shapes out of the corner of his eyes which turned out not to be (other) monsters but his own tangled hair crowding in around him. Half the time he can't even be bothered to shove it out of the way, and yesterday Basira made two J-Horror references in as many hours and he'd been happy to count that as a conversation. 

Which came first? Did Martin want it shorter or did he want the dye gone?

"What – " He stops, swallows. "I didn't understand what your problem with it was in the first place." Because he does remember compelling Martin over _hair_ and now he should be able to control it. That doesn't stop the thought of how he wants to know everything though; how he doesn't like Martin keeping secrets, hiding away from him.

Something about the idiocy of it must break Martin, just a little, because he does catch a few strands between his fingers before he can stop himself. Then he clears his throat, too harshly. "'Mouse-brown'. I should have just accepted that. It's not like I ever actually changed what I look like."

Jon chokes a little, not on the words but on the sudden aftertaste of ashes and cleaning chemicals that washes through him with the thought of 'mother'.

Whether Martin realises or not, he looks away anyway. "I've got somewhere to be, Jon. You must do, too."

Jon doesn't think that's true. Perhaps he's supposed to be down in the Archives, consuming statements, yet he questions the idea that it's where he _should_ be. Whatever the Eye wants of him, he doesn't think it should be encouraged.

Except Martin's turned and gone, and Jon has the rather nasty feeling he didn't actually see him leave.

\---

Jon's mouth is talking about how there's a way out of this, for both of them, but (as always) his eyes are somewhere else entirely.

He'd spotted the white before, whenever he managed to catch the odd glimpse of Martin at the end of corridors or at the bottom of the stairs, or the very few times he's simply forced himself into Martin's presence. And yes, he does realise how carefully calculated the distant sightings are. Jon has enough of an understanding to realise that holding Martin at a distance is no fun for Peter Lukas unless Jon is constantly reminded of the fact. He also knows that Martin is allowing this to happen. (He doesn't need horrific supernatural powers for that.)

It’s not a revelation, the creeping white in Martin's hair. The surprise lies in how large it's grown in so short a time. Like something feasting on him – which it is, of course it is, and Jon should know better than to employ similes when reality is literally horrifying. The colour's going in patches – at the roots, from the tips, in possessive spots the size and shape of fingerprints. Martin, being leeched away.

(This is Jon's place of power. It should be. It _is_. He could stop this, could hurl Peter Lukas out and coil about his assistants and everyone else touched by the Eye. That means Daisy as well, only Daisy would never accept it, and they're both trying not to be monsters, and besides, Jon hasn't fed properly in so long and the Archivist is weak.)

His mouth is talking about escape because Jon wants to believe it's possible. He can't make himself do it alone and this is the one plan he could think of: that perhaps he can if the alternative is Martin being trapped. His eyes, though, Jon’s eyes aren't just his anymore and the part of him that's still Jonathan Sims hates that he can't be surprised when Martin won't come with him. Won't run away with him.

He wants to reach out and cover those fingerprints. He must start to move, since Martin flinches and there's no other reason for him to do so. Jon isn't here to hurt him (not if he's against the blinding).

Perhaps Martin is saying goodbye. That would be nice, in that it would tear Jon's human heart out right through his chest but at least he'd have an answer. That would still be better than the absence. Losing Martin without a word.

"Careful," Jon says, because the loss is looming and he has to say something, "we almost match."

For a shining moment, Martin's face scrunches up in confusion and Jon's ears ring in the brief cessation of the static. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Jon shrugs, drawing a vague line in the air from his own heavily-salted hair (it would help if the black stopped coming out whenever he pulls at it) towards Martin, still sitting at the desk. Putting it into words would either turn out ridiculously inane or hopefully inadequate, or both.

"Jon. You really have to stop this."

"I don't even know what I'm doing," Jon tells him. It's hard enough trying not to do the things that the Eye wants; to – in essence – not be himself.

Later – how much later doesn’t matter – his hair-tie breaks in the early hours of the morning, after he's wound the ponytail round and round his fingers as if he can sever it and thus kill the years, rewind the clock. He could cover it up if he's not going to cut it – certainly his grandmother would approve – only what purpose would that serve? No point in claiming closeness to any other religions, after all, when he has a god lurking over his shoulder already.

No point in most things. Or is that what Martin feels? Is Jon projecting or empathising or Knowing?

Jon digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, still seeing his office through fists and hair, and wishes he could just cut everything away. Wishes he weren’t too much of a coward. 

He just doesn't think he could handle never seeing Martin again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did I write almost 13 000 words about hair dye? We may never know.

Jon has never been one for naps. Occasionally he might have found himself abruptly head-down on his desk, a crick in his neck and an ungodly taste in his mouth; he's certainly dragged himself to the cot in the Archives enough times, catching a few hours of unconsciousness before daybreak; once or twice at Oxford Georgie outright locked the door and tied him to the bed until he slept before an exam. His relationship with sleep has always been complicated, even more so now that slipping into unconsciousness means slipping into other people's consciousnesses, but he's never once considered naps necessary. Never seen the point.

Martin has dozed off on his shoulder, mouth half-open. He isn't snoring exactly, yet it still feels like Jon's world has centred itself on the sound of him, those soft breaths so close to his ear. If he closes his eyes, that's all the world is – that and the rattle of the rain on the window. This late, with the motorway spattered with dull neon, only three other people remain awake on the coach. One is the driver, cursing the weather and the pay and the passengers and everything except his own choices; another a woman with the seat by the loo, practically a girl and sad that her visit home is already over; the last someone plagued by travel sickness and thus sat upright, fingers clenched into their knees as they count every second their stomach doesn't betray them. Presumably, if he focused hard enough, Jon could know their names as well. He just doesn't care to.

Throughout his life, Jon has always defaulted to trains. Coaches are just larger buses, and he hated that bus ride to school so much that he'd leave an hour early just to walk it. Martin, however, is an old hand, from cheap package deals with his mother and job-hunting without a car (or a truthful CV). There had been something gratifyingly solid about watching the muscle memory kick in, Martin striding along as if he already knew everything. It had been...normal. A normal Martin, with his deliberately softened laugh as they bought their tickets to underplay his size. To keep himself safe.

Martin's laugh, even though in so many ways he doesn't look like Martin anymore – the Martin who used to laugh like that around Jon. The shadows around his eyes, the lines around his mouth which didn't come from smiling. The white hair, not from age or stress but from the very colour being leeched away. The things the fog took for itself.

Jon's arm tightens ever so slightly around Martin's shoulders. At first this had felt abominably uncomfortable and he wouldn't say that that's changed, rather that his priorities have shifted. It’s that closeness, the warmth all the way along his arm and down his side. A couple – _another_ couple, he supposes – who disembarked two stops ago wouldn't stop staring at them. Her gaze had been there every time Jon had checked; his had flicked, to them and away, over and over. It's been a while since Jon has been watched so blatantly. It took him far too long to relax; to realise there's no fear here beyond simple ignorance. How strangely freeing to suffer normal prejudice once more.

Shifting in his seat, Jon's boot again kicks the plastic bag at his feet. As far as Martin has been told, it's simple amenities for the trip. Martin had smiled so quietly at that, mouthing 'amenities' with just the slightest sound to it, and yet Jon had still recognised the mockery. Martin hadn’t been mocking him or his voice the way most did it though. He was…teasing. Jon has never known what to do about being teased; from Martin, he finds that warmth blooms inside his chest and he smiles without intending to do so.

They changed coaches in Birmingham, and while Martin spent their hour making relevant and productive purchases (tracking down the nearest Poundland, as far as Jon could tell), Jon had made some very faint excuses and then headed for a small shop tucked away off on one of the smaller shopping streets. Because, well, he'd spent the whole journey from Victoria thinking about it, which involved a great many traffic jams so that amounted to far more time than the distance should have entailed.

Something Daisy had said, one of the many days Martin hadn't been there. Down at the pub, her and Jon and Basira. When Basira had gone for her round (two beers and a cranberry juice), Jon had asked what they were even doing there – and, more to the point, why Daisy honestly thought she could persuade him to do karaoke, regardless of how much alcohol she plied him with.

"Sometimes you've got to be a bit ridiculous," she'd said. Jon barely bit back the question of whether that included the smile on her face as she watched Basira arguing with the bartender. "Makes the serious things not matter so much, you know? The way I see it, it's the same you doing both of them."

He wonders whether that makes it better, that the same woman who'd screamed out a remarkably intense cover of She Loves You by Lennon and McCartney had lost herself to the Hunt in the end, running feral and rabid into the darkness.

The bag clinks again, as the coach overtakes a rare fellow passenger on the road to nowhere special. Then Martin's breathing is the only sound Jon cares about.

\---

"I was wondering about that" is Martin's reaction when Jon produces the black bag with its blue and purple logo. "Wasn't sure what sort of 'amenities' you couldn't get anywhere else. Thought maybe it was a spooky thing."

"I still don't sound like that," Jon says, just to see that flicker of a grin that proves Martin disagrees. "And no, nothing ‘spooky’.” He can’t imitate Martin for the life of him but it’s still worth surprising that genuine laugh out of him. “Nothing except knowing the right shop for what I wanted.”

“Now that does sound useful."

"Not out here, it isn’t." Jon had known theoretically that places like this still existed, where the encroachment of the modern world amount to a small Co-Op in the nearest village which half the population still eyed with deep suspicion. After London, he thinks this might count as culture shock. When Martin had said that 'obviously' they couldn't order a pizza out here, Jon had assumed it to be a joke for a full minute, getting increasingly irate when Martin wouldn't own up, until Martin had looked him in the eye and _asked_ whether it was possible.

Now, Jon holds the bag out a little further, feeling increasingly foolish. This is a terrible idea. An idea born out of desperation and light-headedness. The sort of idea you'd expect from Tim, or maybe Melanie, and look what happened to them.

His hands are shaking. He realises when Martin covers them.

"It's okay," Martin says, because that's what they tell each other if they don't think they can talk about what's actually happening inside their own heads.

"Sorry, it was – It was probably a fairly stupid idea, I know. Impulsive of me."

"Impulsive isn't necessarily a bad thing," Martin says, in a voice that suggests that as much as Martin wants to reassure Jon, he also has some distinct Opinions about Jon's tendency to wander off. Or perhaps it isn't in his voice, and Jon has always been at least a little aware of how Martin feels about these things. "You know," and good Lord, now Martin's got that giddy waver in his voice as if this will be a joke, "I sort of thought you'd left me, then."

Jon's fingers tighten. "That wasn't my intention, at all."

"Yeah, I know," Martin says. He didn't know. Jon hardly needs eldritch insight for that. "Just a funny moment, in front of all those departure boards, before you came back. Like I..." He flattens his mouth into a line, his eyes on a point over Jon's shoulder. Jon doesn't look around.

When he'd come back to the bus station, breathing a little heavily after noticing the time and realising the mistake he'd made, Martin had been translucent. Staring up at the black boards of orange numbers and letters, everyone in the station moving around him without noticing. 

Jon had done that. Left Martin alone, with no real guarantee he was coming back. Neither of them have had the most positive experience with words, lately.

The bag rustles, apparently enough to bring Martin back from that world just behind Jon. He looks inside, no longer alight with curiosity, a hollow of dull acceptance inside him – and then his eyebrows fly up, and he looks up at Jon sharply.

"Jon?" His voice is louder now, more present, with that note in Jon's name which always catches him. "Jon, what is this?"

It's not what Martin's asking, but Jon answers, "Well, obviously there's the dye itself, but there's also some plastic gloves, and that shampoo's supposed to be very good for – "

"Jon."

He falls silent.

"Jon, I don't understand."

No, of course he doesn't. Not because he lacks access to some universal fear encyclopaedia, but because it doesn't make sense. It's _stupid_. However he imagined this moment – and truthfully he hasn’t, not really, not in any way that ever sounded like the two of them talking – it wasn't like this. He'd rather hoped to skip over the explanations. If he doesn't quite comprehend it himself, how is he supposed to say it? Sometimes it really is so much easier, other people's words in his mouth.

"It's a little complicated," he lies.

"Uncomplicate it, then." Martin's voice isn't harsh, which is presumably the only reason Jon doesn't flinch. It doesn't hurt that, a moment later, there's another rustle and then Martin's hand is on his – on the scarred one, the sensation of being held only at the edges. "And remember," he goes on, as Jon draws in a stuttering breath, "you don't have to impress me."

As if that's the point. "Right, I." Jon rubs his free hand down his face, possibly a little too hard. "You always used to dye your hair. Always."

"Yeah, and you hated it."

"I didn't – " Jon scowls at him a little, through his fingers. When Martin raises an eyebrow, he sighs. "Alright, fine. I...disliked it, because I thought it was unprofessional and at that point I considered working at the Institute to be...something of a proper job. The kind of place where appearances and so on _mattered_. And I'm sorry for being a nightmare back then, obviously."

"What about being a nightmare since then?"

" _Martin_."

"Sorry, couldn't resist. Go on?" His hand tightens. Jon focuses on that instead of Martin's face.

"I might not have always liked it, or admitted that, or… It was you, though. It was what you did. And then you stopped after I – " How does he describe the coma, anyway? It's been months and he still has no idea. They have so many things to discuss, and the only thing Jon can actually be certain about is how much he doesn't want to do that. Presumably Martin feels much the same, if the way they're both tiptoeing around is anything to go by. "Well. As much as I disagree as to your assessment of your natural hair colour, I will say that it didn't look right."

Martin's fingers flex and Jon instinctively holds on tighter, as if the moment Martin lets go everything will fly away. "I said it didn't look _right_. Not that it looked _bad_."

"They sort of feel like the same thing," Martin mutters.

God, when is Jon going to successfully navigate a normal conversation with another human being? Then again, why break the habit of a lifetime? "You just look... _wrong_ without any colour." Naturally, Martin's free hand jerks towards his hair. "Not like that – Well, yes, exactly like that, only...not?" Jon sighs and lets his head fall forwards. It's only as he rests it softly against Martin's chest that he recalls that this is possibly a little too intimate. He'd pull away only this frankly feels rather nice.

"Um," Martin says, which seems a perfectly reasonable reaction to whatever nonsense Jon's mouth has been spouting. If he's being honest, Jon's already forgetting and for once he finds himself thanking whoever is taking an interest that conversations can slip out of his head this easily. It's that or he has to listen to his own pathetic alphabet soup of sentences on repeat in his head for the rest of his life.

"Is there any chance we can just forget about this conversation until one or both of us is dead?" Jon groans.

Martin's touching his neck – just for a moment, and then his fingers slide up into Jon's hair, and between that and the darkness behind Jon's eyelids this is starting to feel very pleasant indeed. "I don't know," he muses, the words vibrating through his chest, "there's something a little flattering, hearing you word vomit like that."

"'Flattering'?"

"Funny, too. Obviously."

" _Obviously_ ," Jon echoes, with all the derision he could possibly muster. He likes to think it's rather a lot.

"You dived into the Lonely for me and led me home, and you sort of seem to know...I don't whether it's _everything_ , but it's much more than anybody else. I don't know, it's just kind of amazing to hear you sound like a normal person. And then I remember it's because you're talking to _me_ , and that's even more amazing." Martin does this odd stutter, not quite a giggle. It's endlessly endearing. "So, you know what? Word vomit away."

"I thought you were supposed to like _poetry_ ," Jon reminds him, less of a smear on the word than previously. "Where's the romance in talking about vomit?"

"It's a reference." Of course it is. At some point, Martin is going to realise that he can say whatever he wants and call it a reference and Jon will just have to decide how much he trusts him. Georgie managed that for months without him realising; she still gets away with it, sometimes. (Got away with it.) "And I think we're getting off-topic again."

Shame. Jon rather likes this, the way the conversation winds like a river, finding all the chinks in the landscape. It's quite novel for him. His conversations, such as they are, generally centre on a singular purpose. He usually fights so hard to stop getting distracted by every stray thought flying past. "What precisely do you need to hear, Martin?"

To his credit, Martin does not say anything immediately. He pulls back enough to look at Jon, which makes Jon shift on the spot in a flare of hypocritical self-consciousness. Martin’s eyes are slightly narrowed, except Jon doesn't think it's with suspicion, not with the way his mouth is still tugging to the side as if he wants to be able to smile about this but he just needs to make sure. Then he looks down, pulling out the bottle of dye from the bag with another accusing rustle and lifting it to eye height. Jon's breath catches when his eyebrows fly up again.

"Jon, did you actually look at this?"

"No, Martin, it was one of those new-fangled shops where you do everything blindfolded." Not that it would make an awful lot of difference, perhaps. "Can't say I care for them but apparently they're the future."

"Arse," Martin tells him, smiling. "It's permanent."

"My arse?"

Tim used to have this habit of punching Jon in the shoulder 'with affection'. Jon didn't believe him at all, until Daisy did the same thing with more force and yet it sent a wave of something deep and yearning and lost through him, like the Lonely rose up in a single moment to drown him. Martin doesn't do it with any strength at all, more of a very light push, and yet apparently Jon loves it anyway. "You're doing that on purpose."

"Naturally." He doesn't even think about smiling. He just does it.

"Jon. I always got semi-permanent, _at best_. This...feels a bit bigger." His fingers flex against the plastic, the same way they'd flexed against Jon's hand. "Bit presumptuous, don't you think? I mean, what if I didn't like it?"

"I like it."

"Well, good for you. You're not going to see it every time you look in a mirror – Oh, Christ, is that what this is? You want to decide what you're looking at?"

The plummet into paranoia-tinged panic happens so quickly Jon experiences a level of vertigo worthy of the Vast. He blames the way the air suddenly thins for the way he blurts it out: "I'm doing it too!"

You can't actually hear someone else blinking. Not really. That doesn't stop the brain making assumptions.

"What?"

Jon winds a strand of his hair around his right index finger, as always tighter than he should. He knows, if he glanced down, that it would be hard to say whether there's more black or white. "I was going to dye my hair as well. The same colour."

Before the last few months, Jon would never once have described Martin's face as 'blank'. The Lonely might be behind them, physically, but he can't help a pang in his chest at Martin's own scars.

"I know you like colours – bright ones – only I just couldn't quite see myself going chartreuse, or turquoise, or _fuchsia_ – "

"Yes, Jon, we all know your opinions about fuchsia," Martin says, his voice a little high and very detached so that the joke hovers oddly in the air. "What makes purple so much more acceptable?"

Because that's what's spread out across the label of the bottle: a deep, dark, rich purple. Most of those adverts are gross exaggerations of the colour you'll get combined with your actual hair, but then again, Martin's hair's white now. It's the closest anyone will be able to manage, and Jon had felt so right about this one. He’d Known it.

Frankly – and here Jon's thoughts take on the tinge of Georgie's voice, despite everything – after all the shit the Beholding has pulled, it can give him this much.

"I've always liked purple," he says.

Martin's face contracts and expands in a rather hypnotic display of expressions, yet somehow the laughter Jon would normally anticipate (which is why he's never admitted that to anyone besides his grandmother) never makes it out. Who knew that it was possible to have a mouth smiling that widely while the eyes are that soft? "Have you really?" Martin finally asks, and even his voice seems to be suffering from undue pressure on its constraints.

Jon nods. "This shade especially. It just seems..." What does it seem? How do you put a colour into words? That’s a job for Martin, and Jon's thoughts enact a giddy spin when he realises that he can actually hear Martin's version. "Soft. Deep." He shrugs to try to dislodge the discomfort. "Comforting."

Martin's hand touches his shoulder, and then rather unexpectedly cradles his chin to lift his gaze. "Jon. Are you sure you want to do this?"

Jon makes eye contact, just for a moment – eye contact the old-fashioned way. "I've never been more sure about anything."

Over-dramatic exaggerations in love are a cliché for a reason, after all.

\---

The cottage lacks a proper shower, more's the pity. Jon's grandmother might have sworn by baths but he distrusts the tub implicitly – something about swimming around in his own filth. Surprisingly, Martin is even more uncomfortable with it. As soon as Jon's vision flickers with the impression of Martin bent over, wet up to his biceps as he tries to manoeuvre a showerhead and flinching at every snag as he tries to work the shampoo through his mum's hair, he feels ill and has to step outside to breathe again.

Still. The showerhead attachment does mean that neither of them has to strip off entirely to do this. Not that Jon would be opposed if it were necessary, but it does dodge a lot of discomfort from both of them.

"Which of us goes first?" he asks.

"Oh, well, um," Martin says, looking at the bottle, "I can do both of us, so I guess...you first, then I'll do my own?"

It's a good thing that bluntness has never been something Jon has struggled with. "You're not doing your own hair this time."

"Jon." After an initial splutter, Martin's voice sounds surprisingly annoyed. "I've done this _so many_ times. You've never even done it _once_."

"You never put enough on the back," Jon tells him. "It's always fainter back there – or you remember there and then the front is lighter. It's distracting."

"How is it distracting?" Martin asks. "When has it ever – Have I ever told you that you are extremely obsessed with my hair?"

"Then you should trust my expertise." Jon pulls his jumper over his head – Martin's jumper really, apparently Jon shivers too much and it makes him feel cold – and only then remembers to untie his hair. Finding where the hairtie has ended up in the straggly mass is harder than it ever should be. "Besides, it only seems fair. I'm trusting you with mine."

"Oh, come here." Martin bats Jon's hands away, taking hold of Jon's hair at the base of his skull and drawing the tie out. "It's not like that's a big thing, Jon. I don't think you've ever taken care of this." As if to prove a point, his fingers snag, and Jon feels a jolt despite how careful Martin's being. "Sorry."

"Hardly your fault." He can already guess that a few strands have come loose. It happens every time he runs his hands through his hair, which has always been very often and only more so since he became first Head Archivist and then the Archivist. "If anything, I should be apologising."

"Well, then, we're going to be here all week, because I can apologise for Britain and I am not letting you take the title." When Martin's voice fades towards the end of the sentence, Jon looks around in confusion, in time to see him vanishing out of the door. Just as Jon's breath catches, he's back, wielding a black hairbrush and looking rather surprised about something. "Jon?"

Quickly, Jon says, "Nothing," because saying anything else would be painful. "That's not necessary, you know."

Martin rolls his eyes a little. "How about you let me decide for a change?" He drags a wooden chair into the centre of the room, one which until about five minutes ago had held a range of threadbare towels with the telltale signs of bleach staining them. "Trust me."

"I do." It comes out with absolute sincerity and seriousness, because how else would he say it? Clearly Martin doesn't expect it though, from the slightly punched-out noise he makes. Still, when Jon sits down, he steps in behind him, and Jon lets his eyes fall shut. (His other eyes, too.)

It confuses him, when the first tug comes at the ends rather than the crown. Martin gets a grip on his hair and uses short, abrupt movements, and it's not long before he starts muttering under his breath.

"Aren't you supposed to be asking about my holiday plans?" Jon asks, vaguely aware this should hurt more.

"We're both in a murder cottage, you don't have to remind me. When did you last even brush this?" Martin sounds positively angry. Jon can’t fathom why – it’s not like his hair has ever engaged in extensive manipulation or murder, which are usually the sort of thing which incite Martin like this.

"Casual haircare might have slipped my mind at some point after becoming a thought-devouring avatar of a fear deity."

The next tugging sensation takes a while longer to come. "That's not funny, Jon."

Jon sighs. "No. I suppose it isn't." And he decides that perhaps he should stop talking for now, or at the very least make the attempt to do so.

In the manner of most small countryside cottages, the building is homey but not as structurally sound as he's accustomed to. To whit: the wind howling through chinks in the windows or caught up in the chimney. In the dead of night, it would probably give him nightmares if he still possessed the luxury of experiencing his own. It certainly lends their little seclusion from the world a more gothic air than he'd have expected, albeit not one that seems inappropriate.

Blame the horror living inside him, but as the strokes of the brush lengthen and Martin starts to hum to himself, the lowing outside begins to feel comforting.

Crown to tip. Start at the top and all the way down. The bristles running over his skull, just enough pressure to really feel their passage.

"Jon?"

Jon makes a noise he doesn't think has ever escaped his throat before. All sound is vibration, only you don't tend to be so consciously aware of the fact.

"Blimey." Hesitation, and then something warmer and softer traces the same pathway. The knowledge of what is happening sits even deeper, nestling as deeply as the Admiral in sofa cushions. "Never thought I'd see you like this."

Jon breathes. "'S'nice."

"I'll bet. I'm actually kind of jealous, seeing you." Martin combs through his hair – no. Martin _strokes_ his hair, and Jon doesn't purr because humans can't do that. "Do you need a nap or something? I'm not going to stop you sleeping, you know that."

"No, I'm – " Jon drags his eyes open just enough for them to close again. Objectively, the bathroom doesn't look any different, and yet everything is a touch out of focus, a little less important. "I'm fine, Martin. I'm good."

Martin chuckles to himself, deep and safe. "Yeah, you are," he says. "Okay, Sleeping Beauty, I'm going to need my hands back a sec."

Jon isn't doing anything, so he doesn't see why Martin needs permission. Then Martin takes a step away and the air behind him is suddenly so cold. "Martin."

Martin has the audacity to laugh at him. Fortunately, scowling has always come naturally to Jon, and so he narrows his eyes even as they struggle to focus properly on Martin turning on the taps and testing the temperature of the water from the shower attachment. "Sorry, just – Actually, you know what? I'm not sorry. You have no idea how much I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that you whine like that."

"Time travel's impossible." Jon sniffs. "And if it weren’t, that would be an awfully facile use of it."

"Don't ruin my dreams," Martin tells him, actually wagging a finger. "I have a showerhead and I'm not afraid to use it."

Jon scoffs, managing to force his liquid limbs into standing up. "You wouldn't dare – "

It's hard to say which of them is more startled to discover that Martin would, in fact, dare.

Between the spluttering and coughing and trying to claw his hair out of his face, Jon hears Martin frantically saying "Sorry" and "I don't know what I was thinking" and "Christ, are you alright" and "Sorry" over and over again. The shock is so great that it takes him a moment to fully process what happened: that Martin Blackwood, former archival assistant, just blasted him in the face with a jet of water. That this an incident which has indeed taken place in his life. That this is his life.

"Shit, I'm so sorry, Jon," Martin is still saying, "I just thought 'wouldn't it be funny' and it really wasn't, and I don't know why I'm saying I thought that because I didn't think, not really, and I..." The stream of guilty testimonies peters out. "Are you laughing at me?"

Is he laughing? That would explain a lot: the way breath is coming harder than usual, his chest heaving, and his face aching so oddly. It gets worse the more Martin stares at him like that, incredulous at first and then increasingly outraged. He smacks Jon's arm and Jon just laughs harder, and then Martin's mouth is starting to twitch. "You bastard," he says, and the word shakes, "you utter – I was really worried for a second there!"

Jon tries to catch his breath, although his shoulders keep shaking and talking is harder than anticipated. He wipes water off of his face and looks down at himself, abruptly drenched and now dripping onto the cracked white tiles. "Does this count as washing my hair, then? Is that your 'technique', from your extensive experience?"

"Shut up and come here, you menace." Martin is grinning as he says it and the whole room lights up around him. Perhaps Jon will stop being so in love at some point, at least enough to pass in society, but then again why on Earth would he want to do that? He smiles back as he tips his head back over the bathtub at an awkward angle, just so that Martin has to adjust the showerhead and his body and curse him goodnaturedly the whole time. "I'm not your slave anymore, Jon."

"No, you're my hairdresser. Quite the promotion. Congratulations."

Martin tuts at him, or at least makes a sort of 'tch' sound which Jon suspects is essentially tutting. He doesn't even turn off the water when he's done, just gives Jon's shoulder a light shove and then sticks his own head under the spray, rubbing his hand back and forth through hair the colour of summer clouds without the slightest sign of the care he'd taken with Jon's. Jon stands there, towel around his shoulders, and he doesn't say anything, but he does notice. He also doesn't say anything when Martin grabs the second towel and rubs it so roughly over his head, impatient.

Martin picks up the bottle of dye where he left it on the sink, squinting a little at the instructions as if he hasn't read them four times already. He looks round at Jon, a question on his lips, and then hesitates. "What?"

"Nothing." This isn't the time to discuss it. Granted, Jon has no idea when will be the time to have that particular conversation, besides _not now_. "What were you going to ask?"

From the flat line of his mouth, Martin isn't convinced by the stellar argument that Jon has no questions. Still, he doesn't push. "Shall I do you first? So you get an idea of how to do it."

Jon feels his lips quirk, as unmistakeable and involuntary as if a hook had caught them. "You're...asking whether you can 'do' me?" Then he yelps as Martin whips him with the towel, even though it hurts far less than when Georgie does it (used to do it). "Alright, yes, you go first. I never realised what a short fuse you have."

"Shut up, sit down, and don't make me set fire to the place," Martin says with a smile.

The rustle of plastic gloves makes Jon twitch, but he still takes a seat on the edge of the bathtub, fingers curling around porcelain enamel. Martin inhales audibly, so he waits. "Okay," Martin says to himself. "Okay, right, this is... This is fine."

"Is that meant to be reassuring?"

"I wasn't talking to you," Martin says, opening the bottle with a crack. "It's rude to eavesdrop."

"That's alright then," Jon replies. "I am very rude."

Presumably Martin has some witty retort to hand. Unfortunately, Jon misses it in the first pass of gloved hands over and through his hair.

It's...strange, is what it is. Yes, his life as of late has grown decidedly arcane in an unpleasantly literal sense, and should he dig around in his mind he won't find many experiences to be entirely unfamiliar. Nevertheless, as he consciously focuses on this – the moment, the place, the person – he suppresses a shiver for entirely normal reasons. Martin's hands pulling through his hair are reminiscent of the hairbrush, enough for some of that odd peace to leak in at the edges. The goop (for want of a better word), on the other hand, clings oddly and moves even more so. It slides along Jon's skull, thickening as Martin adds more, and he knows with absolute certainty that he wouldn't be able to do this to himself. Just a drop brushes the back of his neck and his shoulders seize up like the Admiral's if you catch his tail by accident.

One of Martin's hands leaves to fetch the bottle, but the other rests on the side of Jon's head for him to lean into. "Still with me?"

"More or less," Jon murmurs.

"Just putting one last bit on," Martin tells him. That makes sense: Jon's tracked paths from crown to tip on all sides. Something of a thorough coating, thank God. There doesn't seem much point in covering the areas which haven't gone grey, but there's probably even less point in trying to avoid them. "Then it's fifteen minutes till you can wash it out."

"Yes, Martin, I did read the instructions," Jon says with a sigh. Fifteen minutes with the sensation of his hair being unclean, weighed down by chemicals. Well, he's gone plenty of time before without a decent shower, however much others might complain. It can't be much worse than the feeling after escaping America, when his hair was clinging close with blood and dirt and whatever filth lived in the Hunters' lodgings. (He does not linger on that question at all.)

Tugs at the end of his hair, in small clumps and then gathered together. Then it's over, and Martin's pulling his gloves off to throw in the sink. Jon wrinkles his nose and grabs them out, tossing them into the small bin.

Martin splutters. "You could have used them!"

"Or I could get my own pair." Jon thinks he's being perfectly reasonable. After all, he bought an entire box of them, if only because they didn't seem to come in smaller amounts. "Seems easier than trying to turn those back right-side-out."

From the way Martin's mouth opens again, he wants to argue the point; from the way he closes it again, suddenly seeming to shrink, the reason he wants to argue is nothing good.

Jon clears his throat, or at least uses his throat to make some sort of noise that isn't an awkward silence. He pulls out his own pair of gloves from the box rather than leave the matter open any longer.

"This smells terrible," he says instead. Whenever he thinks he can handle the extra weight, the sharp chemical stench rears up. "You seriously choose to keep doing this?"

"Not being serious is part of the point." Martin sighs and holds out the bottle. "Go on then. Just – "

"Martin. I know how to do this." All Jon has to do is ask.

"Maybe in _theory_ , but you've never actually done it _physically_."

"It won't make any difference,” he tells him.

"Jon. If I handed you a sword right now, would you be able to fence someone?"

Martin has quite the talent for making Jon just come to a halt to stare at him. Fortunately, while the bottle is open, he hadn't started pouring yet. He's still trying to get over the smell. "Where would you find a sword?"

Martin shrugs, somehow not unbalancing himself and falling into the bathtub despite how precariously he's perched. "It's Daisy's murder house. Maybe there's one in the kitchen."

When Martin had tried to make dinner for the first time in the kitchen, they'd both been braced for facilities in line with the persistent draft, cracked ceilings, and extremely temperamental boiler. They'd both stared at the array of perfectly sharpened knives in the drawer and not said a word.

"A sword's more of a drawing room weapon. Or a library," Jon suggests.

Nodding, Martin says, "Right, I'll check there next. Probably next to the ballroom."

Jon possibly likes the texture of the dye even less on his hands than in his hair. His neck is already started to complain about the angle he's holding it at, though that could also be years and years of poor posture wreaking their vengeance. He knows one brush of hair won't turn his neck purple; that won’t stop him from avoiding it. 

Still. He rubs his hands together, with all the unpleasantness of plastic gloves and slime combined, reaches out, and then halts less than an inch away from Martin's scalp. "Are you sure about this?"

Martin sighs rather louder than Jon thinks he deserves. "Jon – "

"I know it was my idea, but that – That doesn't mean that you have to do it."

Very slowly, Martin tilts his head back. For all that his body instinctively curls in, when he wants to, he has an extremely disconcertingly steady gaze. Ever since he started using it, Jon's ironically felt at a distinct disadvantage in any staring contests, and not even for the usual reasons. "Yeah, I'm doing it because you suggested it, but that doesn't mean I don't want to do it. Just means you got there first."

He reaches out with one hand (how is he keeping his balance?), catches Jon's unresisting wrist, and then tugs it down. In an instant, there is warmth under Jon's palm, and when he instinctively pulls back there's an unmistakeable handprint right there, following the curve of Martin's skull. For a moment he just stares at it, at the sheer audacity of the evidence that _this is it_.

"You just going to leave it there?" Martin asks, completely calm, as if he isn't facing down the barrel of months with Jon's hand emblazoned on the back of his head. As if that's remotely alright.

"You're a lunatic," Jon says, with no bite whatsoever to the words, and this time he reaches out under his own volition and starts to work the dye through Martin's hair. It takes longer than expected, and more than once Martin makes some comment about Jon's intense focus on getting every single spot just right, to which Jon either snipes back with some half-hearted and hardly-meant insult or just remains silent as he works. The world narrows down again, nothing but the sound of Martin's smile and a distant patter on the roof as it starts raining yet again. Jon just has to focus on the task at hand. He just has to get it right.

When Martin's phone goes off, he almost jumps a mile. Martin possibly does jump, only he somehow turns it into a motion upwards that leaves him standing and the both of them blinking. Jon still has his hands held out in midair, and even when he notices he's not entirely sure what to do with them.

"Already?"

Martin snorts a little, shaking his head as he turns off the alarm. There isn't a spot of white left on his head, Jon notes with very real satisfaction. Not a trace of the Lonely to be seen. "I guess you weren't kidding about doing it 'properly'," he says, barely any teasing to it, more wonder than anything else. Then he clears his throat and gestures at Jon. "Okay, let's get that out, then."

"Thank God," Jon says, and means it.

It doesn't matter how often it happens. Jon suspects this will never stop surprising him: how gentle Martin is with his hair. (With all of him, he supposes. They're trying to figure out touch.) This time the process of washing it is far less playful and far more intent, Martin carefully working his fingers through over and over. 

Slightly loathe to vanish off into those heavy thoughts again, Jon asks, "How does it look?"

"Well, you're never quite sure until it dries, and obviously when you wash it again it might – " Martin stops. Jon can't look because he has to keep his eyes closed and he hates that. "It looks good, Jon. Great, actually."

Simply because he feels like he should, Jon says, "Naturally." Then he goes back to enjoying feeling the horrid weight of the dye leaving him behind.

Sitting waiting for Martin's timer to go off is interminable. On the one hand, Jon can track time now if he focuses hard enough; on the other hand, it does tend to turn everything into the sensation of staring at a clock, an activity which Jon has always despised. Time has always been an enemy of his.

At first, Martin insists he can wash his own hair, despite Jon's hesitance. Unfortunately, Jon doesn't know quite how to put it into words, how much he dislikes it. Far easier is when Martin starts yanking at it again, strands noticeably coming out into the bathtub, so Jon can grab the showerhead with apparently enough audacity to startle Martin into some measure of acquiescence. Or perhaps he decides he can have this small thing, just once.

It looks stunning. Not that Jon's smug, although of course he is. Just, even with purple-tinged water washing away down the plughole, it's so vivid and distinctive as a colour. As much as Jon loves Martin regardless, that doesn't detract from the sheer rightness of seeing him with colour again.

Martin pushes his fringe out of his eyes and says, "I never know what you're thinking, when your face does that."

"If it helps," Jon says, "I'm not quite sure how to describe it, either."

\---

It catches him again and again, every time he passes any sort of reflection. Jon's never much cared about his appearance and yet he finds he can't stop staring because, well, it isn't him anymore. Or it's a different version of him. 

Naturally, Martin catches him more often than not. "You do get used to it," he says.

"I don't see how." Blame it on Jon's lifestyle prior to this point, but constantly catching unfamiliar colours out of the corner of his eye makes him jump. What does help enormously is Martin's hair matching. Jon has to keep reminding himself that this purple is theirs – safe.

Martin is taller than him, which makes his attempts to rest his head on Jon's shoulder absolutely ridiculous. Undaunted, it doesn’t take long for him to try doing so on Jon's head instead. Jon just has to sigh and pretend to barely tolerate it, without ever trying to move him off.

"I get it, you know." Martin is looking at their reflection in the front window of the cottage as well. "Never thought I'd see...well. Anything like this, you know?"

Despite knowing full well it's not the intention, Jon feels the guilt squirm inside his stomach. Or perhaps it's just hunger – Basira keeps saying she's sent the statements and they'll be here shortly but that doesn't stop him needing them right now. "Your boss stooping to the level of dyeing his hair?" Although the bizarre thing isn't so much the purple streaks as the way it makes the rest of his hair darker as well. It shouldn't be possible with black. He blushes a touch at just how grey he's gone already.

Martin prods his side and he jerks, albeit not far enough away to break contact. "Jon, you've got the same hair colour as me. It's...basically the most romantic thing I can imagine, and I have read so much poetry."

"Explains the brain rot. At least this way I don't have to wander lonely as a cloud through daffodils," Jon says, his voice lilting slightly with the reference without assimilating a new voice altogether.

"Okay, first off, that poem isn't about this, and second, _fuck Wordsworth_."

Jon snorts. "After you."

"Not if you paid me."

"Good." Awkwardly, given he's using a reflection to orient himself, he reaches up to pat Martin's head, and then gets distracted as usual by the sight of it, the sensation of twining strands around his fingers. "Yellow would look _terrible_ on you."

He can feel the way Martin is laughing, through his hands and his head and everywhere Martin is pressed against him. "Seriously, you are _obsessed_ with my hair."

"You love it."

"Yeah," Martin sighs. He gathers up a small bunch of Jon's hair, purple and black together, and pulls it up gently to lie against his own. In the reflection, there's barely any sign of the difference. It's all the same, together. "I really do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Either they do the apocalypse with purple hair (no real time progression means no growing out!) or the Eye and the Lonely each wipe it out again. It's up to you, really.


End file.
